New Covers!

Jeroen ten Berge has done it again! Check out the cool new covers for the Kindle editions of  Good Day In Hell and Safe and Sound: 

Redneck Noir Returns!

Safe and Sound, the award-winning third book in the Jack Keller series, returns as an eBook at Amazon.

If you missed it the first time, that's sad. Miss it again, and it's a damn tragedy.

SAFE AND SOUND: Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

For some reason, the Kindle version of SAFE AND SOUND, the third Jack Keller novel, is taking forever to go live on Amazon, but the version for Nook and other e-book readers has been live for a couple days.

L.A. Noir, Safe and Sound...

The very funny and talented Stephen Blackmoore hosts one of my must-read blogs, L.A. Noir. It's always worth checking out to find out some of the weird shit going down on the dark streets of the City of Angels. And I'm honored that he has some kind things to say about SAFE AND SOUND.

Thanks, Stephen!

SAFE AND SOUND "KICKS ASS SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY!"

So says Longhaired Weirdo, in the comments for the last entry.

It's not a cover blurb, John, but will it do?

I put down Harry Potter to read it!
-unidentified librarian who called me out of the blue one day

The paperback's out today, folks! Hope you grab one...or several. Father's Day's coming up, you know.

http://www. booksense. com/ for an independent bookseller near you...

Or at Barnes and Noble, Borders or Amazon.

SAFE AND SOUND Paperback!

As you can tell from the tick tock and tiny tinntabulations of the timepiece below, the Mass Market paperback of SAFE AND SOUND comes out tomorrow. If you haven't already purchased the third Jack Keller book, here's a few reviews to pique your interest:

Publisher's Weekly: Crisp dialogue and the author's deft use of local color support a narrative driven as effectively by characters as by events.

Bookreporter.com: One of the darkest--and best---novels of 2007. The author's narrative, which reads much like that of Dashiell Hammett, is strong, stark and sure, just like his plot.

January Magazine: This book demands to be read. SAFE AND SOUND is a tour-de-force, diabolical thriller. (Voted one of the best crime novels of 2007 by January magazine).

Available everywhere....if you don't see it, please order it!






UPDATE: Silly me...it's the MASS MARKET paperback. I'd originally said trade...I swear I know the difference.

Can This Relationship Be Saved?

Latest Newspaper Column:

“Gentlemen, the doctor will see you now.”

“Come in, come in. Mr. President…Senator. It’s good to see you.”

"Thanks for agreeing to see us on short notice, doc. I know you’ve got a full schedule.”

“Well, I have to admit, I was a little surprised. But I could hardly turn you down, sir. Or you, Senator.”

“John, aren’t you going to say thank you to the doctor?”

“Uh, yeah, thanks.”

“Come on, you can show more enthusiasm than that, John.”

“George, do we have to do this right now?”

“Oh, you’ve got somewhere else to go? You’ve got something more important to think about than our relationship?”

“Well, yeah, George, actually. I have a campaign event in….”

“And I suppose I’m not invited to this one, either!”

“George, we’ve been over this…”

“See what I mean, doc? He acts like he doesn’t want me around any more!”

“Mr. President….are you crying?”

“You’ve got to help us, doctor. “

“Mr. President…Senator…this isn’t really the kind of couples counseling that I normally do.”

“But you’re supposed to be the best! You’re our only hope.”

“Okay, okay. Have a seat. Both of you. There you go. Mr. President, the tissues are right there on the table.”

“I’m really sorry George is being like this, doctor...”

“Don’t you dare apologize for me!”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen…I don’t think this is productive. Why doesn’t one of you tell me what the problem is.”

“I don’t have the problem. George does.”

“Oh, right, like you’re not as much a part of this as I am!”

“For the love of…”

“Mr. President…George…it really seems like you have something you want to get off your chest. So maybe you should start.”

“Well, doctor, John’s been getting more and more distant from me. Oh, he’s always polite, but…I remember a time when there was so much more. There were all those times we used to hug in public. There was the time he brought me that big cake…you remember the big cake, John?”

“You mean the time John was bringing you a big birthday cake at a fundraising party while New Orleans was drowning? I remember seeing the pictures in the papers, yes.”

“Oh, sure, doc. Throw that up at me again. Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“See, this is a big part of the problem, doctor. George always has to make it about who’s with him and who’s against him.”

“John, let George speak. Then you’ll have your turn, I promise.”

“Oh, all right. “

“Go ahead, George..”

“Anyway, it all came to a head recently. We were supposed to have this big fundraiser in Phoenix. A lot of big shots, a lot of big money. So what does Mr. Big Shot Presumptive nominee do?”

“I’ve tried to explain…”

“He moves it to a ‘private location’! So he could--and this is a quote from your own people John, so don’t try to deny it—‘avoid the cameras!’

“George…”

“Why don’t you just come out and say it, John! You’re ashamed of me! You’re embarrassed to be seen with me!”

“Well…”

“It’s because I’ve gotten fat, isn’t it!? Well you try keeping your figure eating all that rich food at state dinners!”

“You haven’t gotten fat, George…you’ve gotten...unpopular.”

“No!”

“Admit it, George! Your poll numbers are the lowest since they started keeping track! You’re…you’re…”

“Senator, don’t say anything that you’ll regret later…”

“No, doctor, we need to get it all out on the table. George…you’re dragging me down.”

“No! It’s not true!”

“It is true and you know it!”

“So what are you saying? You want us to….split up? Doctor, do you think that’s what we should do?”

“Now, now, gentlemen, now that we’ve got all that out in the open, we can have a real discussion. Everybody have a seat. George, put down the paperweight. If the two of you start throwing things, it’ll just confuse the Secret Service. Let’s not make this any harder on them than it has to be, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now, why don’t the two of you start concentrating on the things you have in common? Because, if you’re really honest with one another, you have to admit there are an awful lot of those. You both really like the idea of keeping troops in Iraq. You both want to keep cutting taxes even as deficits spiral out of control. Neither one of you gives a rat’s behind about the health care crisis. You two are soulmates, however much you want to deny it. Now come on. Look into each other’s eyes. Admit it.”

“John?”

“George?”

“Hug me.”

“Now see? Isn’t that much better than fighting?”

“Thanks, doctor. You’re a miracle worker.”

“I have my moments. I’ll send you my bill. And could you do me a favor?”

“What’s that, doc?”

“Could you go out the back way? Because I really don’t want to be seen with either of you.”

When the Buzzwords Fail

Latest Newpaper Column:

I tell you, folks, last week was not a good one for the favorite buzzwords of the Far Right.

We start with one of those favorite rhetorical bugbears of the wingnut, the so-called "unelected judge." Whenever a legal decision doesn't go their way, the cry goes up by the politicos of the GOP torch-and-pitchfork brigade: "unelected judges!"

It was no different recently when California's Supreme Court struck down that state's ban on gay marriage on state constitutional grounds.

U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, House minority whip, fumed with clockwork predictability: "Today, the decision of unelected judges to overturn the will of the people of California on the question of same-sex marriage demonstrates the lengths that unelected judges will go to to substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people."

See that? He got the buzzword in twice. I think they get some kind of bonus if they do that. Or maybe Dick Cheney just promises not to shoot you for a whole year .

Well, Roy, old son, there's only one problem. The judges who voted to overturn the ban are, it's true, appointed by the duly elected governor, but they then have to be approved by a vote of the people at the next general election. In fact, all of the seven justices participating in the decision were elected by 69 percent or greater of the voters.

So much for "unelected judges," and so much for the idea that the leadership of the House Republicans has the foggiest idea what it's talking about.

Then you had poor right-wing talk show host Kevin James, who on Chris Matthews' "Hardball" show on MSNBC began literally screaming at the top of his lungs the moment he was allowed to speak about how Barack Obama was another "appeaser like Neville Chamberlain" for his position that the U.S. should have talks with Iran.



Matthews asked, not once but several times, if James actually knew who Neville Chamberlain was and if he knew what Chamberlain had done that constituted appeasement. I won't bore you with the five minutes of twisting, dodging, and outright ignoring of the question that James engaged in, but suffice it to say that the answer was, "No, James had not the slightest idea what Neville Chamberlain actually did that could actually be called appeasement of Adolf Hitler." (Hint: It involved giving up half of Czechoslovakia.)

If simply sitting down and talking with enemies is enough to constitute "appeasement," then let's look at some other famous "appeasers" in history.

Ronald Reagan: The patron saint of the right presided over an administration that conducted numerous high-level meetings with a state that supported terrorism, actually had nuclear weapons that were actually pointed right at us, and who had threatened to destroy us in the name of their ideology. (That would be the Soviet Union, in case you didn't know.) Oh, the shame! Oh, the appeasement! We even, horror of horrors, had an actual embassy, with ambassadors and everything, in the heart of the enemy capital!

But St. Ronald never sat down and talked with any Iranians, by golly, at least according to Sen. John McCain. Well, I suppose that's true, since the hostages were released at the moment he became president. It should be noted, however, that what St. Ronald DID do was approve the sale of weapons to Iran, including sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles that could have been used against American planes, and state-of-the art anti-tank missiles that could have been used against American armor. But he never did talk to them, that's true. That would have been appeasement (insert eye-roll here).

George Bush the Elder: James Baker, Poppy Bush's former secretary of state, made, by his own count, 15 trips to Syria in 1990 and 1991 -- at a time when Syria was on the list as a "state sponsor of terrorism."

And, he noted in a 2006 interview, " On the 16th trip Syria changed 25 years of policy and agreed for the first time in history to come sit at the table with Israel, which is what Israel wanted at the time. And, thereby, implicitly recognized Israel's right to exist." Talking to an enemy, he said, is not appeasement: "You don't just talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies, as well. And the diplomacy involves talking to your enemies."

But Reagan and Bush the Elder came from another time for the Republican Party, a time that the GOP, whatever its other faults, was at least run by grownups and not by mouth-breathers who have trouble articulating any concept that can't be reduced to a bumper sticker. What will they do now that the buzzwords are failing them?

Dusty Rhoades lives, writes, and practices law in Carthage. His third novel, "Safe and Sound" will be released in paperback on June 3.

Weird America: Vacation Spots for the Intrepid Traveler

Latest Newspaper Column:

Well, it's that time of year again.

The trees are blooming, the birds are singing, the sap is rising, and the minds of most Americans turn to thoughts of packing up the car, kenneling the pets (or getting a neighbor to come by and feed them), and getting away from it all for a few days. So, as we always do about this time every year, we bring you our guide to American's weirdest vacation destinations:

*Ramp festivals: I regret to say that, by this time of year, most of the South's Ramp Festivals have already taken place. But you can still make the one in Crossnore, N.C., on May 24 and 25.

What's a Ramp Festival, You may ask? It's where you go to eat a whole mess of ramps, silly. And what's a ramp? A ramp is a kind of wild onion, also known as the wild leek. They grow, according to Wikipedia, from South Carolina to Canada, and they've been a staple of the diet in Appalachia for hundreds of years.

The taste has been described as like a "garlicky onion," and there are all sorts of ways to prepare them Unfortunately, though, no matter how you fix them, there's one problem with ramps: They make you smell bad.

Now, it would seem to me that, if you were going to have a festival celebrating something like this, it would be to proclaim, "Thanks be to God that we have a modern food distribution network, so we no longer have to eat something that makes us smell like Satan's gym socks," but tradition is a powerful thing.

As for me, the only way I'm getting near one of these shindigs is to approach it from upwind.

*The Screaming Giant: If you've got a hankering to see a giant metal statue of a screaming bearded man trying to claw his way out of the earth, I'm afraid you're going to have to drive a little farther than you used to.

"The Awakening," a profoundly disturbing statue by sculptor J. Seward Johnson Jr., was originally placed in Washington's Hain's Point Park back in the Reagan years. Apparently the Park Service was never all that crazy about it. Go figure.

In February, a billionaire developer named Milton Peterson laid out 725,000 simoleons for the frantic colossus and moved it to his ritzy new development in National Harbor, Md., where it writhes in all its frozen, mute agony next to the marina and restaurants. Because, you know, there's nothing I want to see more while I'm scarfing down my crab-cakes than a titanic statue of a guy who looks like he's been buried alive. Rich people are weird.

*World's Largest Ball of Twine: It amazes me that, for all the years I've been doing this feature, I've never done a bit on the most classic of all roadside attractions: the world's largest ball of twine. Sisal twine, to be exact.

Well, wait no longer, and my apologies for the delay. It's in Cawker City, Kan. It weighs almost nine tons. It's not particularly interesting-looking. But it is an awful lot of twine.

* The Burger King Vampire Peacock Memorial: In June 2007, a real, live peacock wandered into the parking lot of a Burger King in Staten Island, N.Y., and was promptly beaten to death before a horrified crowd by an insane homeless man who announced he was killing a vampire.

Now, something that weird can't go without being memorialized in some way. So a retired shop teacher from Staten Island named Charles Johnson decided he'd carve a life-size peacock out of elm, decorate it with actual feathers from his own peacocks, haul it to New York from his new home in Virginia, and donate it to the Burger King.

And so he did, and there it sits, in the BK at the corner of Page Avenue and Amboy Road. You can see it to this day. Watch out for insane homeless guys. And the fish sandwich. That thing is nasty.

*The Martian Invasion Memorial: Remember when the Martians landed in 1938? The people of Grover's Mill, N.J., sure do, or at least they remember the hubbub caused by the Orson Welles radio hoax that convinced Americans that nasty Martians with heat rays had landed in their little corner of rural Jersey before being felled by the common cold.

So they've put up a plaque showing a pre-morbid-obesity Welles declaiming into a microphone while a terrified family cowers before the radio. Unfortunately, the water tower that local rubes blasted with shotguns after mistaking it for a Martian war machine has fallen to ruin.

OK, it may not sound like much, but what else are you going to do if you find yourself in Grover's Mill, N.J.?

Happy traveling!


Special question for blogreaders: Where's the weirdest place you've ever been on vacation?

SAFE AND SOUND in the Crosshairs

Russ Heitz, author of Crosshairs turns in a very fine review of SAFE AND SOUND over at Josephine Damian's blog:

Rhoades’ descriptions of his characters, both major and minor, are sharply drawn and clearly delineated. They also have the feel of being dead-on accurate. His descriptions of settings are also sound and solid. Whether it’s an Afghan desert or the Blue Ridge Mountains of the American South, the reader can taste the air, feel the grit, and maybe even tap into memories from his own past.

More at the link....

Thanks, Russ and Josephine!

SAFE AND SOUND Takes the Page 69 Test

Marshal Zeringue of the Campaign for the American Reader gives the Page 69 Test to SAFE AND SOUND.

I Always Thought I Was More Notorious Than Meritorious

The incomparable Molly Weston, mystery lover and great friend to North Carolina mystery authors, reviews SAFE AND SOUND at her site, Meritorious Mysteries. She likes me! She really likes me!

Thanks, Molly.

MIlitary.com likes SAFE AND SOUND

Military.com gives SAFE AND SOUND a thumbs-up for their summer bookshelf:

"...a treacherous chase whose trail starts in war-torn Afghanistan and leads to the rugged back country of North Carolina. If you're looking for remorseless bad guys, a hero with a dark side, and lots of action, slip this one into your beach bag. "

Excellent. Thanks to military.com and even bigger thanks to the community they serve.

SAFE AND SOUND Launches...NOW! NOW! NOW!

Actual footage from the SAFE AND SOUND Launch Party.


And just remember: a reader once told me about my last book, GOOD DAY IN HELL, "I put down Harry Potter to read it."

So there.

On A Happier Note...

January Magazine reviewer Anthony Rainone gives a thumbs up to SAFE AND SOUND:

Rhoades’ commanding writing will leave readers simultaneously disturbed and hugely enthralled.

Thank you, Anthony!

Publisher's Weekly Reviews SAFE AND SOUND

NICE!!!!

The money quote: "Crisp dialogue and the author's deft use of local color support a narrative driven as effectively by characters as by events."

Safe and Sound Review

Here's an excellent review of SAFE AND SOUND from Jon Jordan at the Mystery One Bookstore site.

Please go read it and then buy lots of stuff from Mystery One, and Crimespree Magazine while you're at it.

Thanks, Jon!

Booklist: "Full Throttle Narrative"

Once again, the fine folks at the American Library Association's magazine Booklist give a Keller novel a great review...the best part:

Like James W. Hall’s similarly one-named hero Thorn, Keller faces a soul-crushing catch-22: he must unleash his propensity for violence to protect his loved ones, but by doing so, he alienates himself from those he seeks to save. Rhoades explores this psychological conundrum thoroughly but never at the expense of the full-throttle narrative. Think of Keller as a similarly tortured, contemporary version of William Munny in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.